Slovenia’s Iskratel is opening an office in Munich to help with its expansion into the German market. The company which provides fibre-to-the-home solutions already has EUR115 million in sales but is seeking to expand in Spain, France, Belgium and now Germany. It says there is considerable growth potential in these countries, particularly in underserved rural areas.
Mitja Golja, Broadband Business Development Director at Iskratel, says: “We know from experience what network operators have to look out for in the business case for fibre optic networks in rural regions. We now want to bring our know-how to Germany in order to promote the expansion of fibre optics there.”
Iskratel’s previous experience in bringing fibre optic connectivity to underserved areas includes the Slovenian-Croatian open access project RUNE (Rural Network), which provides passive and active XGS-PON network equipment to supply 210 cities with Gigabit connectivity. It is also working with Telecom Slovenia to rapidly expand 5G network connectivity, and in Belgium is building a 10Gbit/s fibre optic network for thousands of households in rural areas with the Ulysse Group – providing a complete XGS-PON solution consisting of Optical Line Terminals (OLT) and Customer Premises Equipment (CPE).
Iskratel’s Patrick A Zuncke notes that his company has already been able to demonstrate its expertise to network operators in Germany such as the Magdeburg telecommunications provider MDCC, which belongs to the Tele Columbus Group. “This is just the beginning,” says Zuncke. “I’m certain Iskratel will play a leading role in broadband access in the German broadband market for years to come.”